


We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky

by sunriseseance



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Love, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:20:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21945742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunriseseance/pseuds/sunriseseance
Summary: It’s cold outside. The snow refracts light from the sun (a star) and the sparkle (like stars) of it hurts her eyes, but she can’t stop looking out the window. She doesn’t want to. It’s piled up to about two feet, she’d guess, and most of it is new. Waiting to be romped through by long, carefree legs. The desert here is strange. Red and orange beneath the snow, and a plethora of trees. There’s snow on the trees too, of course, and it looks comfortable. The world is quiet except for the scratch of his pen and the sound of his voice (he’s a star). She listens.
Relationships: Harukawa Maki/Momota Kaito
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arasol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arasol/gifts).



> Check out arasol's three wonderful fics tbh.

Maki knows stars in her own eyes when she sees them. She knew back during the game, too, and hoped that blinking enough, turning away and breathing deeply all at once would hide them. She didn’t want the star-man to know. 

But then, now, she looks at him. He sits at the table in the little cabin he rented them halfway across the world (in a desert so alien she feels like she traveled to another planet. He’d like that. She should mention it to him) and he draws a star map on a napkin from a local drive-in. He doesn’t drive, though. He flies planes, and rockets, and his heart, but not a car. The star map is for her to study so that, later tonight, she knows what they’re looking at behind the meteor shower. 

It’s cold outside. The snow refracts light from the sun (a star) and the sparkle (like stars) of it hurts her eyes, but she can’t stop looking out the window. She doesn’t want to. It’s piled up to about two feet, she’d guess, and most of it is new. Waiting to be romped through by long, carefree legs. The desert here is strange. Red and orange beneath the snow, and a plethora of trees. There’s snow on the trees too, of course, and it looks comfortable. The world is quiet except for the scratch of his pen and the sound of his voice (he’s a star). She listens. 

★★★

She watches him laugh. The snow clings to his hat, and the hair that escapes it, and his cheeks. His skin flushes a bright red color and it’s because of the cold, it is, but it deepens under her gaze. She allows herself to appreciate this. To cherish and relish the effect she has on him because she knows it comes from a love sowed so deep that, even on her darkest nights, she refuses to doubt it. 

To doubt Kaito’s love is to doubt Kaito, and she refuses that part of her. She may not be worthy of it (she is. He tells her she is, and she wants to not doubt him on that, either) but she has it, and she will until the day she dies. She will die first this time. Or else, neither of them will ever die. They’ll upload their conscience to a cloud, or they’ll meet aliens that grant them immortality, or they’ll carve their names in a cave in the desert and grant it to themselves. 

Maki throws a snowball at him and he makes a sound only he could make when it hits the side of his head. He’s delighted. He throws two back, both miss, so she lets him tackle her. He does so gently, even then. 

She takes the opportunity to appreciate the way the sun, and the crisp blue sky, capture his face.

“Like the view, Maki Roll?” he asks. She feels herself smile and she doesn’t try to stop it. 

“This place is beautiful” she answers instead. He rolls off of her and lies in the snow beside her. He grabs at her hand with his own mittened one. 

“Wait till you see it at night. The stars are unparalleled. I’ve heard, at least.” His voice echoes off of the bluffs around them. They’re alone, though. It doesn’t matter. 

“You’ve never been here before?” She’s not annoyed, and she shouldn’t be surprised. He’s certain about good things (he’s certain about her). 

“I never had the chance. Or the money. But I’m glad I waited” he says, squeezing her hand “this sort of thing is better with people you love. Heroes should never be alone.”

Her heart skips a beat at the love word. 

★★★

The cold seeps into her clothes, through her face and the space between her gloves and her wrists, and Kaito suggests they go inside. He had more plans for outside, but he’s getting better at slowing down. She makes him hot chocolate and he makes her dinner. Butter noodles. 

The sun sets to the west, through a twin set of strange orange formations. The colors are red, and purple, and vibrant beyond what she imagined possible on such a clear day. The magic of the desert, Kaito tells her. She believes him. He rests his head on her shoulder. She feels safe. 

Stars peak out as the sun grows dimmer, the light more purple, and Kaito begins to radiate. Not that he’s not always radiant. A sun of her own. Warm, and bright, and (as much as Tenko would hate her for saying this) life-giving. He rocks back and forth, a bit, while telling her about a dog he met as a child. She’s sorry to have missed it. She loves him like its a verb like breathe. Like she has to do it, and like she wants to do it because of how good it feels. Natural. 

★★★

He compares her to the stars, as they get in the car. It’s freezing cold outside with the sky-sun no longer warming them, but they have a vista to get to. She handles the car with measured repose and he tells her about how the sky is black like her hair, and she has stars in her eyes because she’s so bright and cool. He uses the word cool. He calls her beautiful, sometimes, and he means it, but she likes this more. She understands him. 

They get out, at the top of a hill, and the sky is vast and endless and infinite and many other synonyms that make her grab Kaito and hold him closer. He fits into her arms well, and he lets himself be held with a gentle sigh. Stars like she's never seen them sparkle above him, above his head, like a halo. The sky is infinite, but in no way empty, but in no way dark. He points, with mittened hands, to various constellations she finds on her napkin-map and his eyes radiate, again, and she loves him completely. He’s brilliant. She hangs on every word. 

Back at the cabin, in their bed, she holds him close, and she counts herself lucky because he smells like a human but she knows, she knows, she is one of very few people in the history of the universe to love a star and be loved back. 

**Author's Note:**

> Milo, you're my best friend. I love you to the stars and back. Merry Christmas. You're luminary <3


End file.
